Amazon To Offer Online Payment Service

If you wondered what service Amazon could possibly provide after announcing its intention to offer DRM free music then here’s your answer. Joining long-term domineer PayPal and relative newcomer Google checkout is Amazon’s Flexible Payment Service (FPS – not to be confused with this type). On offer, then, is the ability for developers to add Credit/Debit Card, Bank and Amazon Payment account transactions to their website. Amazon already allows third parties to sell goods using all these transaction methods via the Amazon Marketplace, so this isn’t such a huge step for it as Google Checkout was for Google.

What will be of interest is to see how eBay, which owns and runs PayPal, reacts to this announcement. The introduction of Google’s payment service caused a great deal of friction between the two sites. Fees are set at two per cent plus and additional five cents for any payment over ten dollars on bank transfers, slightly higher fees for credit cards and less for using your Amazon Payment account. The current beta is open to the US to iron out any hitches before a worldwide rollout as soon as the service is fully ready.